Tips for Pricing Website Design

If you are fairly new to the website design business, then you may be at a loss as to what to charge. If you charge too much, you may never get any clients. If you charge too little, your perceived value can be lower than your time is worth. In order to choose the right price for your services, you will need to do a little research and make a few decisions.

See what others are charging You can talk to other website designers in your area to find out what they are pricing. You could also go to trade shows and converse with people. Check out the Bureau of Labor statistics to find out what other professionals are charging for services in your area.

Figure out how much you want hourly Decide on an annual salary that you can live with. Then choose a realistic number of hours you will be actually working. Divide the annual salary by the number of hours worked and you should have a reasonable hourly rate. Before you set your price, make sure to check with others in your market to see what they are charging.

Dissect your services so that you can put a price on them One way to come up with a good estimate is to determine how much time you will be spending on the website design. To the best of your ability, make a list of all the smaller parts of your project. Just as if you were designing for poster or brochure printing, you need to gather graphics, arrange layout, add text, and proof. Once you have this list, you can estimate how much time each of those jobs will take.

Include other possible costs Add the different tasks together and multiply by your hourly rate. Add 10-20% to the cost for contingencies. Then include prices of graphics you might have to pay for or any other costs. Just as with brochure printing, there will be some pieces that you have to outsource. This should be a pretty close estimate of your time and costs. It is always better to estimate high. Projects almost always take longer than you think they will.

Don’t reduce your price to get business The clients that want to pay close to nothing for your valuable work will not be easy clients to work for anyway. As you build a name for yourself, you will find clients who are more than willing to pay a reasonable rate for quality work.

Market yourself for a higher priced bracket When you build a portfolio of quality of projects, your proven value will go up. Utilize personal branding and clients will start coming to you specifically to do work for them. Once you are in high demand, you will be in a position to raise your fees. Until then, keep your prices at or just below the average market price in your area.